Is there any laws against using ag fert on residential turf? Reason I ask is that when you talk to people at places like lesco they frown real fast and give you reasons not to use that type of product. I understand that they are competitors and they are pushing their product for sales, but I believe a person told me it was against the law in one of our conversations. Does anyone know if this is true? I have looked in books and on the internet but I have not found anything stating one way or the other.

the real answer is no there is no difference between ag type fertilizers and turf type fertilizers. There are differences in blends. Turf fertilizers tend to use poly coated and osmos coated nitrogens but the nitrogens are still the same nitrogens that you can buy for ag purposes, they just have an extra coating to help control release times. Farmers have a hard time justifiying the extra cost of extra coatings on the fertilizers they use. Turf people on the other hand are treating relatively small areas and the exta cost is minimal and can be passed on to their customers, but it is still the same fertilizer under that coating. Before I get jumped on for those statements, There are numerous types of fetilizers available, not only in nitrogen but in P and K and all the other forms of micro nutrients, farmers can and do use these other forms as well as the turf grass professional. Large crop farmers tend to use more of the exotic types of fertilizers than the turf grass people. At least those that are trying to balance their soil fertility levels.

Is there any laws against using ag fert on residential turf? Reason I ask is that when you talk to people at places like lesco they frown real fast and give you reasons not to use that type of product. I understand that they are competitors and they are pushing their product for sales, but I believe a person told me it was against the law in one of our conversations. Does anyone know if this is true? I have looked in books and on the internet but I have not found anything stating one way or the other.

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I have never heard of any law that says you have to use only fertilizer labeled for turf use on a residential lawn. Lesco doesnt sell a lot of fertilizer to farmers simply because of pricing. I can see why they wouldnt want you buying your fertilizer from the local farmers co-op. It would save you money and cost lesco sales if you started going to the co-op for all your fertilizer needs. Now get your butt up to your co-op and start saving money.

Mudstopper is right, at the core its all the same. Here we have neither lesco or co-ops but we do have companies that service both farmers and LCO's, bulk pricing is the biggest difference. Farmers here use mostly liquid fert and most LCO use granular. I buy liquid too because of my injectors but at 30-50 gal. per purchase I don t get the discount the farmers do. I pay 12.00 per gal. and farmers pay 8-9 per gal. This is for a humate based bridge product not straight synthetic. Probably will be the same for you.

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